Blind faith

My devotional reading for Saturday, which I just got around to reading today was about God’s protection.  Several times on Saturday, trying to sort through the emotions of anger and disappointment and just downright confusion at being stood up what I kept coming back to was my old standby phrase about  things happen for a reason.  

This phrase, and my new catch phrase Rejection =God’s Protection have soothed my feelings more than once in the last few years or being on my own.   Most of the time I stay pretty level headed about most things from dating to financial concerns to all of life’s little challenges .  Ocassionally, I get tired of being guarded or debating pros and cons with myself or trying to sort thru the advice people give me which is usually conflicting.  Ultimately, it is up to me make the decision that I feel it best for me.  Sometimes I just throw caution to the wind and say Hey, what will be will be.

Which is why I decided after talking to the comedian guy I felt for sure that I had covered all the pertinent information that would make me feel at ease about meeting him.  While I didn’t ask for his social security number or anything to run a background check (maybe I should start doing that) my boss and I are pretty savvy about finding information about people on the computer.  Between the 2 of us, give us a name, age and some general information and we have enough connections between us to find out if they have been in prison, if they are really divorced, if they have ever been arrested. 

In this case, we were a little concerned when couldn’t find any public records, because usually at least the divorce filing will appear.  To my credit, I did ask him about that and he said that it was filed in a different state.  Which seemed a little odd because he told me that he had lived in Oklahoma City for 15 years before moving to Lake Texoma. 

Still, I have always prided myself on being a pretty good judge of character. I rely on my intuition a lot.  If something is off, I usually get a vibe.  Ocassionally, though I don’t.  An example, several years ago there was this really nice guy that I met and though I didn’t run into him often,everytime I would think, you know I should ask him out. I knew he was single from having had several conversations with him about how hard it is as an older single to meet people.  Finally, I decided I was gonna go for it and ask him out.  My co-worker asked if I had run all the “checks” on him and I hadn’t because I interacted with this person on a regular basis and felt like I knew him pretty well.  Imagine my shock and dismay when I typed in his name and found out he had been in prison for rape of a minor.  Granted it had been several years earlier and I am not saying that people can’t reform but on something like that I am not gonna take a chance.

The fact that as of this morning, said nice comedian guy that I really really liked and enjoyed talking to has disappeared from the online dating site entirely makes me feel very fortunate that I was stood up. And I feel like God has his hand on me and was protecting me from what could have been a very bad situation.  And I have resolved to be a whole lot more cautious in the future.   If you read about online dating on the internet, you find that in spite of isolated incidents  “the track record of online dating makes one fact crystal clear: online dating is generally very safe. “  Still, I’d rather not be in the small percentage of bad situations.

So who do you trust?  The answer would seemingly be no one.  Because you never know.  But to live that way, cynical and suspicious of everyone you meet seems like a really awful way to live.  To be gullible means to be easily taken in or cheated.   I think in general I am probably pretty gullible.  I generally think people are who they say they are.  It is part of my nature to try to find the good in people, and in doing so sometimes the red flags that others see may not get my attention.

At work, my boss and co-workers make fun of me because I am not always that observant.  One day everyone in the office knew our Chaplain had a funeral that day because he had on his “funeral clothes.”  All of them had noticed a particular suit that he wears for every funeral. I hadn’t noticed that he even had on a suit let alone that he wore this suit every time he had a funeral.   One day at lunch my co-workers were talking about someone that had come in to apply for a job as being a druggie.  They had noticed the twitching, the skin issues, etc that indicated the person may have had an addiction to meth.  I had not noticed any of these things.  One day my boss and I were looking at an online site I’m on at lunch at the men.   There was one guy that I thought was pretty cute and his profile made him seem like a nice guy.  Lynelle asked if it bothered me that he was blind.  I said why do you think that.  She said look closely at the photo.  She was right. I had totally missed the dark glasses, the white cane AND THE SIGN BEHIND HIM that said WELCOME TO BLIND RANCH.  See what I mean?  Not observant.  

My favorite picture of me and my mom…the one that is posted on this blogsite where we are laughing , the one I titled What Joy Looks like…is a case of my non-observant nature.  Out of all the people milling about at her gospel barn intermission that night, the one I approached and said would you take a picture o f me and my mom turned out to be BLIND.  When I stepped back with my mom to pose, she whispered “LeeAnn, he’s blind”.  Which caused me to burst into a fit of uncontrollable giggles,which made my mom start laughing too and the photo was snapped.  Pretty good aim for a blind guy. And a priceless photo and memory that will forever be etched in my heart.

I probably need a screener.  And a chaperone.   Because at times I am clueless.  I am so caught up in getting to know someone that I totally miss some pretty important CLUES.  And in spite of  some dates from the online sites that have been not so great, and some dates that didn’t happen at all, and some dates that went great the first time but downhill from there it’s really not so different than meeting people other ways.  I haven’t given up.  Several years ago  I was talking to my mom about the online sites and she said “LeeAnn, I just worry about you…the only people on those sites are weirdos.  I looked at her and said “I’m on the sites”.  She said, well except for you.  LOL    I guess I figure if I’m on there and I’m honest and genuine and not crazy that there must be men on there that are honest and real and sane.

When I find one I’ll let you know…Until then I will follow the rules for “stranger danger”.   And hope for the best. 

L